| Birth Date: | 30 September 1965 |
| Birth Place: | Florissant, Missouri, U.S. |
| Genre: | Observational comedy |
| Alma Mater: | Southern Illinois University Edwardsville |
| Subject: | Interpersonal relationships, everyday life |
Kathleen Madigan is an American stand-up comedian and TV personality. In addition to her stand-up comedy performances, she is a regular guest on a variety of U.S. television programs.
Madigan was born in Florissant, Missouri, one of seven children in an Irish Catholic family.[1] Her parents, Jack and Vicki Madigan, are a lawyer and a nurse respectively.[2] [3] She grew up mostly in Florissant, a suburb of St. Louis,[4] although the family also lived for periods of time in House Springs, Missouri, and in the Lake of the Ozarks region of central Missouri.[2] Madigan received the first eight years of her education largely in private Catholic schools, although she also attended the public School of the Osage.[2] It was there she excelled as a student athlete, participating in volleyball, track, and basketball.[2] In the latter, she set a record by winning the 1978 Mid-Missouri Hoops Shoot Championship. At the time she was 4' 5" tall and set a record as the shortest person to win the event.[5] [6] She shot under-handed, sinking 14 of 15 attempts.
Madigan attended McCluer North High School, graduating in 1983.[7] She admitted in a 2012 interview with St. Louis Magazine, however, that she participated in few activities like float decorating or prom, choosing instead to work at a steakhouse where she could make up to $200 per night.[2] Madigan attended University of Missouri–St. Louis for two years, but, according to Madigan, all she did was accumulate $7,000 in campus parking tickets.[2] At Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, she earned a B.A. in journalism in 1988.[7] While at SIUE, she was in charge of the student newspaper and also served an internship with the St. Louis Blues professional ice hockey team.
Madigan first took a job in print journalism, working for the St. Louis-area Suburban Journals newspapers as well as the publications department of the Missouri Athletic Club. At the same time, she performed stand-up during "open mic" nights at St. Louis area comedy clubs. She credits her father, Jack, with encouraging her to try a comedy career.[8] Her growing popularity at these soon led to the offer of a paying job in stand-up from The Funny Bone, a nationwide chain of comedy clubs.[2] With a thirty-week booking of guaranteed dates, Madigan gave up her jobs in Missouri. She cites Ron White, Richard Jeni and Lewis Black among her influences in her early comedy club days.[2]
Among the TV shows and specials Madigan has appeared on are Last Comic Standing, , I Love the '80s 3-D, and Celebrity Poker Showdown. She also starred in her own HBO Half-Hour Comedy Special and a Comedy Central Presents special. She is a veteran of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Late Show with David Letterman, and The Bob and Tom Show. She also hosts a radio program, Blue Collar Comedy, on Sirius XM Radio.Madigan has twice participated in USO shows in support of American troops, touring both Iraq and Afghanistan along with fellow comedians.[9] She sometimes writes material for other comedians, as was the case in 2004 and 2005 when she was a writer for Garry Shandling when he hosted the Emmy Awards telecast.[9] In 2016, she made an appearance on Jerry Seinfeld's web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.[10]
In the wake of her touring stoppage due to the COVID-19 pandemic Madigan launched her own comedy podcast in August 2020, Madigan's Pubcast.[11] On Saturday, December 19, 2020, she appeared on Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed episode of "Girls Gone Wild" on CBS.
In 1996, Madigan won "Funniest Female Stand-Up Comic" at the American Comedy Awards.[12]
Madigan is single and lives in the Ozarks. She also owns a farm in the Midwest and spends "inordinate amounts of time" with her family there.[13] She has four brothers and two sisters.[8] She has often cited her father as a source of her comic material as well as an example of a positive work ethic.[14]